1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to communications, and, in particular, to telephone sets, service bureaus, and messaging devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are many situations in which someone is interested in receiving a telephone call from a particular person, but may be unable to wait around by the phone until that particular person calls. For example, a parent may be anxious to know that his or her child has safely arrived at the child's destination, e.g., returning to a college dormitory from a holiday visit at home. Nevertheless, the parent may be unable to wait around by the telephone for the child to call.
The present invention provides a mechanism for timely notifying a user (e.g., the parent in the above example) of the receipt of a telephone call from a selected caller (e.g., the child) without having to wait by the phone for the call.
Some private branch exchange (PBX)-based voice-mail systems and network-based systems provide the option of sending a paging message when a call is received, but these systems do not provide selective automatic paging. That is, they do not permit a user to select particular callers, such that incoming calls from only those selected callers will automatically cause a paging message to be sent. Moreover, they do not allow the user to change those selections at the user's discretion. The PBX-based systems are all or nothing: the user has the option of selecting either (1) that all incoming calls will generate paging messages or (2) that none will.
In the network-based systems, a caller will be able to page the user only if the caller has been given the user's access code. In this case, however, paging messages are not automatically generated; the caller must manually select the option to send a paging message. Moreover, the user cannot turn off and on, at the user's discretion, the ability of selected callers to send paging messages. If a particular caller knows the user's access code, that caller will always be able to send a paging message.
The present invention provides advantages over these prior art systems by supporting selective automatic paging.
Further objects and advantages of this invention will become apparent from the detailed description which follows.